The Body: A Guide for Occupants
Bill Bryson, 2019
Knopf Doubleday
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385539302
Summary
Bill Bryson, bestselling author of A Short History of Nearly Everything, takes us on a head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body. As addictive as it is comprehensive, this is Bryson at his very best, a must-read owner's manual for everybody.
Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion as he guides us through the human body…
—How it functions
—Its remarkable ability to heal itself
—The ways (unfortunately) it can fail
Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) and irresistible Bryson-esque anecdotes, The Body will lead you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular.
As Bill Bryson writes, "We pass our existence within this wobble of flesh and yet take it almost entirely for granted." The Body will cure that indifference with generous doses of wondrous, compulsively readable facts and information. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 8 1951
• Where—Des Moines, Iowa, USA
• Education—B.A., Drake University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Norfolk, England, UK
William McGuire "Bill" Bryson is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on science. Born an American, he was a resident of North Yorkshire, UK, for most of his professional life before moving back to the US in 1995. In 2003 Bryson moved back to the UK, living in Norfolk, and was appointed Chancellor of Durham University.
Early years
Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, the son of William and Mary Bryson. He has an older brother, Michael, and a sister, Mary Jane Elizabeth.
He was educated at Drake University but dropped out in 1972, deciding to instead backpack around Europe for four months. He returned to Europe the following year with a high school friend, the pseudonymous Stephen Katz (who later appears in Bryson's A Walk in the Woods). Some of Bryson's experiences from this European trip are included as flashbacks in a book about a similar excursion written 20 years later, Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe.
Staying in the UK, Bryson landed a job working in a psychiatric hospital—the now defunct Holloway Sanatorium in Virginia Water in Surrey. There he met his wife Cynthia, a nurse. After marring, the couple moved to the US, in 1975, so Bryson could complete his college degree. In 1977 they moved back to the UK where they remained until 1995.
Living in North Yorkshire and working primarily as a journalist, Bryson eventually became chief copy editor of the business section of The Times, and then deputy national news editor of the business section of The Independent.
He left journalism in 1987, three years after the birth of his third child. Still living in Kirkby Malham, North Yorkshire, Bryson started writing independently, and in 1990 their fourth and final child, Sam, was born.
Books
Bryson came to prominence in the UK with his 1995 publication of Notes from a Small Island, an exploration of Britain. Eight years later, as part of the 2003 World Book Day, Notes was voted by UK readers as the best summing up of British identity and the state of the nation. (The same year, 2003, saw Bryson appointed a Commissioner for English Heritage.)
In 1995, Bryson and his family returned to the US, living in Hanover, New Hampshire for the next eight years. His time there is recounted in the 1999 story collection, I'm A Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to American After 20 Years Away (known as Notes from a Big Country in the UK, Canada and Australia).
It was during this time that Bryson decided to walk the Appalachian Trail with his friend Stephen Katz. The resulting book is the 1998 A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail. The book became one of Bryson's all-time bestsellers and was adapted to film in 2015, starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte.
In 2003, the Brysons and their four children returned to the UK. They now live in Norfolk.
That same year, Bryson published A Short History of Nearly Everything, a 500-page exploration, in nonscientific terms, of the history of some of our scientific knowledge. The book reveals the often humble, even humorous, beginnings of some of the discoveries which we now take for granted.
The book won Bryson the prestigious 2004 Aventis Prize for best general science book and the 2005 EU Descartes Prize for science communication. Although one scientist is alleged to have jokingly described A Brief History as "annoyingly free of mistakes," Bryson himself makes no such claim, and a list of nine reported errors in the book is available online.
Bryson has also written two popular works on the history of the English language—Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way (1990) and Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States (1994). He also updated of his 1983 guide to usage, Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words. These books were popularly acclaimed and well-reviewed, despite occasional criticism of factual errors, urban myths, and folk etymologies.
In 2016, Bryson published The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in England, a sequel to his Notes from a Small Island.
Honors
In 2005, Bryson was appointed Chancellor of Durham University, succeeding the late Sir Peter Ustinov, and has been particularly active with student activities, even appearing in a Durham student film (the sequel to The Assassinator) and promoting litter picks in the city. He had praised Durham as "a perfect little city" in Notes from a Small Island. He has also been awarded honorary degrees by numerous universities, including Bournemouth University and in April 2002 the Open University.
In 2006, Frank Cownie, the mayor of Des Moines, awarded Bryson the key to the city and announced that 21 October 2006 would be known as "Bill Bryson, The Thunderbolt Kid, Day."
In November 2006, Bryson interviewed the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair on the state of science and education.
On 13 December 2006, Bryson was awarded an honorary OBE for his contribution to literature. The following year, he was awarded the James Joyce Award of the Literary and Historical Society of University College Dublin.
In January 2007, Bryson was the Schwartz Visiting Fellow of the Pomfret School in Connecticut.
In May 2007, he became the President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England. His first area focus in this role was the establishment of an anti-littering campaign across England. He discussed the future of the countryside with Richard Mabey, Sue Clifford, Nicholas Crane and Richard Girling at CPRE's Volunteer Conference in November 2007. (From Wikipedia. Adapted 2/1/2016.)
Book Reviews
Delightful…. Reveals the thousands of rarely acknowledged tasks our body takes care of as we go about our day.… Informative, entertaining and often gross (kissing, according to one study, transfers up to one billion bacteria from one mouth to another, along with 0.2 micrograms of food bits)…. Bryson, who gives off a Cronkite-like trustworthy vibe, is good at allaying fears and busting myths.
New York Times Book Review
Glorious…. Having described the physical nature of our world and beyond… [Bryson] now turns inward to explain—in his lucid, amusing style—what we’re made of.… Astonishing…. [He] draws on dozens of experts and a couple hundred books to carry the reader from outside to inside… and from miraculous operational efficiencies to malignant mayhem when things go awry.… You will marvel at the brilliance and vast weirdness of your design.
Washington Post
A witty, informative immersion…. The Body—a delightful, anecdote-propelled read—proves one of his most ambitious yet, as he leads us on a head-to-toe tour of a physique that’s terra incognita to many of us…. Playful, lucid… [Bryson] cover[s] a remarkably large swathe of human corporeal and cerebral experience.
Boston Globe
A directory of wonders…. Extraordinary…. A tour of the minuscule; it aims to do for the human body what his A Short History of Nearly Everything did for science.… The prose motors gleefully along, a finely tuned engine running on jokes, factoids and biographical interludes…. Wry, companionable, avuncular and always lucid… [The Body] could stand as an ultimate prescription for life.
Guardian (UK)
Mr. Bryson’s latest book is a Baedeker of the human body, a fact-studded survey of our physiques, inside and out. Many authors have produced such guides in recent years, and some of them are very good. But none have done it quite so well as Mr. Bryson, who writes better, is more amusing and has greater mastery of his material than anyone else.
Wall Street Journal
Bryson launches himself into the wilderness of the human anatomy armed with his characteristic thoroughness and wit. He ably dissects the knowns and unknowns of how we live and die and all the idiosyncrasies of our shared infrastructure.… This book is full of such arresting factoids and, like a douser hunting water, Bryson is adept at finding the bizarre and the arcane in his subject matter.… Amazing.
USA Today
(Starred review) Bryson’s tone is both informative and inviting, encouraging the reader, throughout this exemplary work, to share the sense of wonder he expresses at how the body is constituted and what it is capable of.
Publishers Weekly
[Bryson] keeps the science lively by interweaving facts and statistics with anecdotes, interviews with scientists and doctors, and his trademark dry humor.… Bryson has shaped an enormous amount of anatomy and physiology into an informative and entertaining biostory. —Cynthia Lee Knight, Hunterdon Cty. Historical Soc., Flemington, NJ
Library Journal
(Starred review) A delightful tour guide…. Bryson's stroll through human anatomy, physiology, evolution, and illness (diabetes, cancer, infections) is instructive, accessible, and entertaining.
Booklist
A narrative by Bryson rarely involves the unfolding of a grand thesis; instead, it's a congeries of anecdotes, skillfully strung, always a pleasure to read but seldom earthshakingly significant. So it is here.… A pleasing, entertaining sojourn into the realm of what makes us tick.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for THE BODY … then take off on your own:
1. Were you surprised by the myriad physical processes that your body performs as you go about your daily life? How about things like the number of oxygen molecules you breathe in and out every so many minutes … or those cute little mites that dine on your eyebrows? (Oh yum.)
2. If we're lucky enough, we take our bodies for granted. Has reading Bill Bryson's book opened your eyes to just how remarkable these large clusters of cells actually are, how well (for the most part) they perform their jobs?
3. (Follow-up to Question 2) Unfortunately, our bodies aren't always in good health, yet over the years science has developed treatments for disease and physical dysfunction. Sometimes they have been legendary cures, like Jonas Falk's vaccine for polio. Other times they have been the seemingly insignificant things like, say, the use of agar in petrie dishes. Talk about some of the unsung heroes—those who never became household names but whose work resulted in important discoveries.
4. What are some of the myths about health that Bryson says have been debunked by science. What surprised you: perhaps the information antioxidants or how often men think about sex?
5. What does Bryson have to say about the overuse of antibiotics? How have we gotten ourselves to the point where we find ourselves in a bacterial "arms race"? How do we win? Can we win?
6. Overall, what do you think of Bill Bryson's The Body? Do you feel informed, that you've learned something valuable after reading it? Is it engaging? Does it offer a good balance of science and technology with readable prose for the non-expert? Is it funny?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)